Curious to find out just why people use Linux as opposed to other Operating Systems

combination of not using ms products and being able to learn somthing new and not just point and click around.

You forgot to add:

"Because girls dig guys who use Linux."

is there really any reason that you didn't even have a little search? this is asked so so so so many times...

I know, I know...

Wanted to know from these choices in particular...

They left out, "Love Unix so I love free Unix-like operating systems"

News conference Win98, reason, people dislike the fact that they can not use thier Netscape browser, do to the fact that IE is interwoven into the operating system.

MS answer, " If you do not like what our OS does, then use some other OS."

Almost went to MAC, then I heard about this new OS called Linux.

The reason?

Linux is right, better designed that the rest.

Linux is the os for me as an professional, while windows is non-professional, i.e. annoys me with crashes, end-user BS Questions (are you sure you want to do this?... You aborted, that means that the installed did not finish......please know that this will impede functionality, it might be that the programm will not work....), inefficiency and HELL come, THE REGISTRY, biggest pain in the a***** that I know.

Windows is best suited to play games, which I love doing it. M$ ventured out into professional waters and they should not have.... they suck at the three pillars of business computer usage: security, stability, cost.

Sorry for going at M$ again. I sufferend many years of having to work on it. crash, cash, crash, cash, crash...
I just love the little penguin!
BTW: is there a source for stickers, hats, coffee-cups and mousemats with tux on it? (the original fat lovely one)

Cheers

Markus

I started Linux to breathe new life into an old PowerMac 7100. Linux was cool, but mkLinux used a really wierd kernel. It was still a bit of a rush to have my own Unix box, and I got a bit of a masoquistic thrill out of hacking the thing to get X windows working.

Then, I needed a box to split my DSL line, and slapped together a router using a 486 on the "Take Me" table at school, and 40 bucks in parts. This was 1998, before you could buy those cute little D-Link and Linksys boxes. Since I had a server up, it didn't take long until I was playing with webservers, registering my own domains, and running my own email service. This was just when the net was starting to become cool. And I was paying the bills with a few side jobs, maintaing linux boxes.

I finally landed a serious job running a real network. I fought like hell to make sure we used Linux for anything important. It was cheaper and easier to maintain, and I didn't need any more training on it because I already knew it. Almost on cue windows-based viruses and trojens came out of the woodwork. Now Windows is an ugly word around our server room.

Now... if I can just convince them to do the same with the desktops. Hell, I can't even get them to stop sending me emails in DOC format. Heck, I can't even get them to use webmail.

So I could give you a million and one logical reasons, but they would all be rationalizations. I use Linux because I like the way things are done under Linux. (Politically and technically.) Every other reason is a rationalization.

I use Linux mainly because, at least to me, it seems more logical in its set up and administration. I don't want to be led through a bunch of Wizards, I don't want to have the GUI hide what is really going on, and I WANT to use command line for most everyday tasks.

On top of that, my overall hate for Windoze, and all M$ products in general is probably the 2nd biggest factor.

slight

Wanted to learn something "different".

Because building it is fun, and because society needs a free and open computing platform?

Sheesh. You missed that one too

Why pay for less when more is free.

Then again sometimes less is better than more

Nice poll
Well, first, I really don't like seeing an OS trying to be my friend (like : windoze xp wizard will try to install all your network alone by himself yeepee flower green mountain happyness... windoze xp happy-joy wizard loves you, but encountered an error and crashed your whole system, please ready your checker and contact your M$ reseller... DAMN THIS!!) without letting me see what's really inside.
Another bad thing about M$ bugs/security hole is that you can't know what the problem really is because everything is hided and protected. If your system crash (I had 2 blue of death yet using windoze 2k... this is NOT suppose to happen) you can't know why and how and you can only hopeit will not happen again.
In linux, not matter the problem, there's always a solution... Even if your harddrive blow up, you can find a way to back up remaining cluster :P

Second, I think Linux make you go deeper than any windows platform. You can really dig inside and find how all that work. Linux is thousand simple things working together, it's not very hard to understand what each files in /etc do, and to learn that you can... as example, block ads adding their hostname to host with a fake ip leading to yourself (read : 127.0.0.1). Using Linux will give you thousand opportunity to increase your knownledge. On the other part, you can use windoze all your life and never learn anything. Especially Windoze Xp.

I think the plan for the future about M$ is to create very bad administrators that don't know anything except they have to click there and there to install a web server or there and there for a DNS server. So these mindless admin will be forced to use (and to trust) M$ products because they will be too bad to use something else.

Death to the Point and Click

started using linux because i was curious, continue to use it because its fun. i have a copy of win2k server....but it's just too easy, i always try to make my self more marketable, a stand-out in the job hunt, so i do things that not EVERYONE can do. Like for instance, i dont do web development, because everybody is doing it, so i go behind the scenes and setup the servers that deliever the web content. When i get my own real domain name, i'll set up my own DSN server rather than having someone do it for me. All these things in my eyes make me more marketable when i go apply for a career. If everyone who applies knows how to setup a win2k server and i know how to setup everything on Linux and Win2K and can explain all the details of what goes on, then my chances of getting that job are much higher because i have a greater knowledge base and i know how to save a company money using free/secure stuff. So that's why i use Linux, not because I hate M$, but because everybody can point and click, it requires no skill and i dont want to waste my talent on such things.